Housing Bottom? Fannie Mae Won't Seek Tax Dollars Evidence is mounting that U.S. home prices are finally hitting bottom, and now comes the best news yet: Fannie Mae says that for the first time since 2008, it won’t need money from the Treasury Department to balance its books.
Fannie Mae, the biggest backer of U.S. home loans, used to brag that it would be safe from even a severe downturn in the housing market. That turned out to be tragically incorrect. It has drawn $117 billion in aid since being seized by federal regulators in 2008.
Fannie’s announcement today is good news on two counts: It means taxpayers won’t have to shell out any money to support Fannie (at least related to the first quarter—it may need support in the future). More important, it’s another signal that housing is getting ready to turn the corner. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-09/housing-bottom-fannie-mae-wont-seek-tax-dollars
TIme for TZA, FAZ and UVXY again Asian stocks dropped for a third day after JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it had a $2 billion trading loss as positions in credit securities proved riskier than expected and companies including Sony Corp. forecast or posted earnings that lagged analysts’ estimates. National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB), the nation’s fourth-largest lender, slipped 0.8 percent. Sony tumbled 5.8 percent in Tokyo, heading for its lowest close since 1980, after the maker of Bravia Televisions forecast profit that’s about half of what analysts were expecting. Nissan Motor Co., which gets a third of its sales from North America, climbed 2.6 percent.
“Clearly JPMorgan got it wrong,” said Shane Oliver, Sydney-based head of investment strategy at AMP Capital Investors Ltd., which has almost $100 billion under management. “I suspect it’s probably a one off, but it comes during a week where we’ve seen risk off in a big way.”
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.7 percent to 118.85 as of 12:35 p.m. in Tokyo, with about three shares falling for each that rose. The measure is heading for its biggest weekly loss in almost six months as France’s political changes and instability in Greece threaten to derail austerity plans and worsen Europe’s debt crisis.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index slid 0.3 percent. South Korea’s Kospi Index (KOSPI) declined 1.4 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index decreased 1.2 percent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average slipped 0.2 percent. China Inflation
China’s Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) slipped 0.3 percent. The country’s inflation rate was below the government’s target for a third month, giving Premier Wen Jiabao more room to ease monetary policy to stimulate an economy that expanded last quarter at the slowest pace since 2009. Consumer prices rose 3.4 percent in April, in line with economists’ estimates, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics today showed.
Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.7 percent today as investors assessed the disclosure by JPMorgan of a $2 billion trading loss on synthetic credit securities after an “egregious” failure in its chief investment office, which the bank says focuses on hedging. The index rose 0.3 percent yesterday, paring this week’s losses to 0.8 percent.
Lenders declined. National Australia Bank lost 0.8 percent to A$24.38 in Sydney. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. (8306), Japan’s biggest lender, slipped 0.8 percent to 354 yen in Tokyo.
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